[00:00:00] On our Facebook page every Friday at noon my name is Brianna Jasset I am a sustainable transportation in Vermont intern and I am so excited to introduce our speaker today, Curt McCormack, who is the chair of the House Transportation Committee. And today, you'll be talking about legislative action on transportation. Today, we also have with us Richard Watts, who is the co-founder of Sustainable Transportation Vermont and he will be doing a short Q&A with Curt after Curt's presentation for anyone that has questions or comments during Curt's presentation please feel free to put them in the comment section and then we'll get to them at the end. So now I'm just going to bring up Curt. Hi Curt! Hi Brianna. Thank you so much for being here. I just have a quick question to get things started. You've been doing this work a long time and I'm just wondering what motivates you to care so much about transportation-related issues?

[00:01:03] Well, the work I've been doing for a long time is environmental work. Not not just transportation. More recently, mostly transportation. And that, I guess, is the point. Why transportation? Why now? Because I believe that, well I know that the climate crisis is the greatest natural disaster facing human beings today. For some reason, we will not take it seriously. And we just continue to have endless talk, talk, talk and studies about it and programs about it. And just very, very little action. So in our state, the largest emitter of CO2 is the transportation sector. It's actually not true in a lot of states, but it's true in our state. So we've done some good work. Not near enough, but we have done more in the electricity generation sector. And we need to do a lot more on building efficiency so that we do things so that we emit less CO2 from that sector. But in transportation, we actually are getting worse where our transportation emissions are increasing. They're not in the last couple of months because nothing's increasing in the last couple of months but our transportation emissions are actually larger than they were just a few years ago.

[00:02:44] Thank you so much for answering that and I'm so excited to hear more about what you've been working on recently.

[00:02:51] OK, so I should talk about that now.

[00:02:55] Well, When we transport ourselves and everything we do in businesses and industry and personally and getting to work, the automobile, we take it for granted. We get in our car like we put on shoes. You don't really think about it. You're in a hurry.

[00:03:27] You lace them up and you tie them and you walk out the door. And most of us walk into a car and we don't think anymore about what that car's doing and what our shoes are doing. In fact, the car is replacing the shoe.

[00:03:37] When you consider the unbelievably short distances, people will use a car for that

[00:03:44] people used to use their feet for, including people who owned cars. And we are doing better as far as the language, we kind of know what to say, for instance, the committee that I chair is called the Committee on Transportation. And that committee used to be called the Highway Committee, believe it or not. I don't know what year it changed. I think sometime in the 1960s and 70s. So we kind of get it. We know that transportation is not just highways, but we actually don't act on that. So including some of the more, stronger, you know, friends of yours and mine who are who are advocates, strong advocates for the environment, strong advocates for doing something about climate. But when you talk to them, you find they drive everywhere. And if they're going farther than where a car takes you, they fly. Very few people take Amtrack. Very few people use transit. Very few people use bicycle's for transportation. Many people use it for recreation, few for transportation. And if you walk for transportation, including most people in the environmental community, at least the ones who I know. So what do we do about that? How do we get people to stop talking about CO2 emissions and actually cut their emissions. So we need to institutionalize things such as the things I mentioned that are not gowing well right now and there's a number of things we can do. But even they're surprisingly difficult to do. For instance, the Sustainable Transportation Vermont, Richard Watts and Jack Hanson and Brianna you and Josh Katz. And I think that was it came in and testified in our Committee on Transportation Demand Management.

[00:05:58] And that's where we just have serious incentives for people to not drive to work or at least not drive to work all by themselves in their car. We have a number of things you can incentivize. Carpooling is one. Not allowing for free parking anymore is two. And of course, parking really isn't free. It's free maybe, you know, out on Country Road, very far from employment and other places that people go, it's not free here in Burlington and in any place of employment that employs a lot of people, it's far from free. So you can incentive that by de-incentivizing what we do now. Presently we incentivize driving because one of the things we do, is we say, come here, work here, don't worry about your car, park here and park wherever you want on the lot. And it's free, doesn't cost you anything. And we'll make sure there's always a place, a parking space. So there's that. So you also you want to incentivize transit. So to give an idea how difficult that those good concepts are the concept of  TDM, transportation demand management, was to pass in my committee.

[00:07:44] I put that forward and in my committee and immediately it was deemed and this is an exact word that one of the members used, "this is draconian." So even though it was happening and the things I just mentioned are happening UVM and at the UVM hospital, you guys do it now and yet the legislature considered that draconian. Well, by the way, we did pass that, put that into one bill. But we had to take out the mandate. We had to just say we incentivize the company to incentivize the well, we said that if you have a employment and you have more than five hundred employees, then if you you'd like to, we'll help you do this to help you do the TDM.

[00:09:15] So. Yeah, there is not good news coming from my committee. We're trying. But some of us are trying. Some of us are not.

[00:09:27] And in the end, we just aren't doing very much. And we just need your help in motivating people to understand that we really need to move off the mark and stop talking and start acting.

[00:09:48] Thank you Curt. Thank you for being the leader you have been for so many years, really.

[00:09:54] I mean, I first knew you when you were the chair of the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee and living in Rutland.

[00:10:04] One point that you made, I think it's really interesting. It's like living like you famously, of course, don't have a car. You commute to Montpelier and carpool or on the bus, I imagine.

[00:10:18] And to me, that gives you a sense of what it actually takes to do change. It's not so much like your behavior makes some huge difference in the world. It makes a big difference because you can see what it would mean to actually ride the bus regularly or carpool regularly and I wonder if that's something you think about. Like you get to sort of have this view of the world as somebody who's not using the car all the time.

[00:10:49] Well, yes, it's true, and I do have that view, of course, but it's difficult, Richard, to use that, if you will. To mention it, to refer to it, sometimes I do. But when it's personal, it actually can work against you. So besides being strange for some people, there are some people to this day who will look at me and they really do not understand how I can live without a car. It's that crazy! First of all, 32 percent of the households in my district, which is the Old North End and downtown Burlington. 32 percent of the households do not have a car. Not because I told them not to get one. They don't have one. They get around. They go to work and they do what they do. That percentage is 56 percent in New York City, and that's all five boroughs. That's not just Manhattan. Manhattan must be much higher than that because the outlying boroughs would be more than average of all five boroughs in New York City is fifty six percent of the households, not even the people, don't have a car. So, yeah, it can be done. It's easily done. It's hard to explain. You know, that sounding silly, but it's almost a little like that when you're transporting yourself, transport yourself. You know don't live so that you're living for the next thing you're doing. And I think I know I have that terrible habit of always planning. I am probabaly not doing this at this very moment because I'm the live program and I am a little nervous. But it's doable I'll be doing something and I'll be thinking about the next day. No. So traveling is part of living and when you ride Amtrack. I always load up a lot of things to read and I think they have wifi now I bring my laptop, I'm all ready to work and work. When I get to New York on that train, I didn't get half the things done because I couldn't stop looking out the window. at how beautiful it was and it's meditative and it's just it just wonderful. Driving and flying are not that way. And even when you're in the back and you're trying to read in the car I don't know why but it's just difficult I just don't feel like doing it, right?

[00:13:33] 

[00:13:34] I feel the same way Curt. Sometimes I think some of our work is to allow just to allow people to have these other ways of getting around and then started to feel that, wow

[00:13:47] it  is kind of cool to be able to walk or bike and then once you're doing it, you're like, oh, if that sidewalk just continued a little further or if it wasn't easier to drive my car than it actually is to pedal the bike, then maybe I would have, you know, all those things sort of occurred to you. As you do it. Listen, we have a bunch of questions and comments for you. So if it's OK, I'm going to go to a couple of those. One, somebody asks. Let's see Marshall Distel, who is a planner at the  CCRPC and a proud graduate of UVM, asked initially about the connections between smart growth and transportation and what and how you and the legislature are thinking about that. And then he also asked more specifically on the TDM legislation. But can you talk a little bit about land use and transportatio and, you know, we know they're all connected and how you try and think about those issues from your legislative half.

[00:14:54] OK. So land use. Yeah. So, of course, we all know that we made a terrible, terrible mistake in our country, which is leading the way to suburban sprawl and suburban sprawl can not exist without the automobile. And in some ways, the automobile has difficulty existing without sprawl. So we need to change that. And that's not easy. We've made some changes to Act 250 to make it difficult to construct sprawl or to extend sprawl, even if you already have sprawl and say well that sprawl will put one more shopping center right on the edge of the sprawl. No, no more sprawl.

[00:15:42] And there is a  good Act 250 bill pending in the legislation right now. We're going to have some trouble getting all good legislation through this year because some people think we should only be passing covid directly covid related issues. And some of us think, of course, we need to do that and we are doing that. But we also need to pass legislation that's good for the people of the state of Vermont, because, you know, life goes on after Covid. So I would urge you to look in that legislation. It's actually passed the House and the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy Chris Braze the chair of that committee from Middlebury. So in general, I tell you, Marshall, and thank you very much for the question. I remember once somebody asked me what did I think was the worst thing we ever did to this planet? And I said, you know, I really want to think about that and get back to you. Because, you know, I was sure I was going to say some radioactive waste, CO2 or something like that. But I think the worst thing we have ever done to this world becuase we have helped to promote it by doing it is suburban sprawl. That is the biggest, biggest mistake you just could have made. So what to do about it? You cite these things I've mentioned. I think ultimately we will be looking at a constitutional amendment  to the U.S. and state constitutions regarding private property rights. That you do not have the right to destroy the land even if it's not destroyed. In your view, for the present, the land outlives us and other people need to live on that land and we need to stop investing in sprawl to this day, even though all our cities are making a great comeback, including my city, great comeback. But it's actually the amount of construction that takes place inside of towns and cities, not just the big cities, not just the famous places that we all want to live in, like Burlington, but small cities South Burlington is doing good work trying to make a town again, not again, but South Burlington didn't really have a town and they're trying to do that now, but very difficult because they don't stop the sprawl at the same time. So it's hard to do both. So you really have to do just the one you have to stop. And I think we need to actually question the rights of property owners to do whatever they want on their land.

[00:18:31] Thanks, Curt. So we are live here with Curt McCormack, who is the chair of the House Transportation Committee on Sustainable Transportation Vermont.

[00:18:40] And earlier, Curt made the point about some 30 plus percent of people in Burlington don't live in households that don't have cars.

[00:18:49] Julie Campoli who is one of the founders of  Sustainable Transportation Vermont often talks about how we need a transportation system that works for everybody and that there's a whole group of people who may not have easy access to cars like those too young to drive. And if you want to know more about what Sustainable Transportation Vermont does go to our website. Of course, we are taking any questions that you like. And along those lines, a couple of people asked Curt about this moment. And you talked about in legislature, there's so much focus on legislation to address the crisis. But is there anything about this moment that might mean differently coming out of it for transportation? I read this morning that Seattle is planning to close 20 miles of streets, going forward something about this moment, has helped them learn how well people can get around and want to get around without driving. Is there anything in the federal infrastructure stimulus bills to come? Are there any things like? Now that you're thinking about that might come out of this Covid-19 crisis?

[00:20:01] Yes, there are. The question is going to be, will we have the courage to do those things when we hear about things that some of the bigger cities are doing. That's a result of covid and taking these lessons and yeah people like to be able to walk on the streets and it can be difficult to apply them here. Not for you and me, Richard. But I think the vision you know this is not Seattle. And then in Burlington, the closest thing we have to Seattle is Burlington and that has 40,000 people. So nevertheless, it's all quite possible.

[00:20:42] Vermont and Burlington are just microcosms in my opinion of the bigger cities and their suburbs and their rural areas that are there outside of all these cities. So having said that example, the covid Cares Act provides $21 million for Vermont just  for transit. And it can be used for anything. It doesn't even have to be Covid related. It can be used for anything that we presently can use under our grant system from the from the Federal government. In other words, the federal administration, they have the grant. We get about that amount of money from them every year. We're still going to get that money. And the covid money does not have to be matched. That is for every dollar they send to us. We do not have to put up even 5 or 10 percent of that. We have got to put up nothing. So because I know states have more difficulty raising money now than the feds do and frankly the reason for that is that states constitutionally can not,some  were not willing to deficit spend, but they are. Something  that no one's talking about with the covid legislations. How are we going to pay for this? That's the federal government. And we're not going to turn that money down so we could use that money. Some of that money for things that are not related to exactly what covid has done to us, such as a statewide permanent fare free policy. It's one of things I'm going to try to do with some of that money. Why does it take money to be fair free? Because right now. Not right now, but going back three months. We do have fares in most places, such as Chittenden County and the fares raise 2.7 million dollars a year.  2.2 of them is right here in Chittenden County. So if we go fare free. That's a big promoter and incentive for people to use transit. We find that that's what happens when you have fares and then we take them away. More people run as much as twice as many people get on the bus who were not getting on the bus before. So could we do that. And we could we could purchase electric buses, other buses, other equipment? Otherwise it doesn't have to be just cleaning solvents and and the things that we need right now for appropriate relief.

[00:23:31] So this is really obviously going to be a really, really important. But I can imagine there's a lot of pressure to take that added money and put it into the infrastructure that supports our present system, which is car. You know, 80, 90 percent of all our trips are cars.

[00:23:47] So support our bridges and all the things that are the status quo versus moving us in a different direction.

[00:23:57] That's right. Only that that money cannot be used for anything else other than the things I mentioned. The twenty one million dollars is for transit only where its broad is that you can use it for any transit program that was approvable by the federal transit administration right now or before covid and they haven't changed that law at all. That's why I say you could use that money. You could use all of it if you weren't if you chose to. And we would not chose to do this but you actually could, under the law, choose to use every penny of the 21 million to buy electric buses, for instance.

[00:24:39] There's another initiative that I'd read about in which is maybe it's a separate part of this federal money, but it's to build out our broadband infrastructure, spend a hundred million plus, and it relates to something that we've been thinking about a little bit, and that is telecommuting.

[00:24:55] You know, we have this amazing controlled experiment where a whole lot of people are telecommuting. It's based on a survey we just did. A lot of people are really enjoying the idea of not driving to work as much as they did. It's possible that more people in organizations will understand that their employees, that group that can do that than are lucky enough to do that would be able to do that going forward. What's your thoughts on that?

[00:25:23] I think that's a good idea. And we will be using some of the covid money for that, but not that 21 million I was talking about. Right. We are getting a lot of money from the federal government. For transportation, we've only gotten the 21 millions or getting that. I don't even know if any of it's actually sold yet. But that's for sure. And that's coming soon. But that, interestingly the only transportation money in the Cares Act is the 21 million I've mentioned. It's for transit. So they have not given us anything for roads and bridges. But they probably will when they do the stimulus bill that we hear is coming, although it may not come, that it may not come as largely  as they've been talking about another trillion dollars. But, you know, I'm hoping and I plan to lobby our delegation in Washington to put strings on this money. Representative Welch was on radio the other day saying we're gonna let the states decide.

[00:26:36] Put as many strings on that money as you can. And I think we should do the same thing here.

[00:26:41] We should our criteria, we should be using that money all over well, not just in transportation, but broadband. That money should be used as much as possible for immediate covid relief. And then, well, the stimulus package was not appropriate for the disaster on the economy. Of course, we should build back our economy with good profits. By good, I mean projects that do more than just supply employment absolutely. And then what kind of employment? How about charging stations? How about electric buses? How about. Well, whatever it is, it should also relp with reducing our CO2 emissions. The Obama stimulus package did that. Not nearly enough. So we will be having money for bridges, roads and bridges. But I believe in every case it should be demonstrated that the project also is good for the environment. Good for cutting our CO2 emissions. You know, Richard, if I may, getting back to how take the problem more seriously  today is the anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe.

[00:28:13] And you know, when we think about World War Two, we think about what this country did, how we responded in the begining of World War 2, we did inconvenience people.

[00:28:30] We were rationing all sorts of things, not just gasoline entirely rationing sugar and coffee. And I mean, ration. Those things were much harder than in these last couple of months much harder. Matter of a fact gas rationing and so strong, I don't  get word used words like severe so long that most people want no gas. And you had to go look a term exemption to get some more coupons so you could buy enough that you were a doctor and someone could argue your car was essential. So that's World War 2 .

[00:29:02] Now, the covid crisis has been compared to World War Two. And in terms of its impact on us, how it's affecting the economy, but only because we can't be out standing close to each other. And that is the only reason. It's not to win a war. Now, just before the covid crisis, we were hearing a lot of people compare the need to take on the climate crisis, the way we did, the way we took on Germany and Japan in World War 2 and we just are not doing that and we're still not doing it. Why does it take a pandemic or an invasion of our territory, Pearl Harbor to have us take a crisis seriously? Are we good enough to say we need to do this for the good of the future? Because that's the problem, isn't it? You know, the climate doesn't impact you and me that much. Not yet, but it's going to impact people in the future. The war and the covid crisis were impacting people immediately. So we need to make that step. And it would be so easy. The things we need to do are so simple and so naturally easy to do and accomplish. We're talking about carpooling, riding transit, walking, and biking are they not difficult?  We're talking about no longer having sprawl developed. It's all about having the element that's in town where everybody wants to go anyway. Now, one of the problems with sprawl and all the people who live in sprawl  want to come to town they do every day. They do several times a day. But nobody really wants sprawl it is just cheaper out there. And it's cheaper because you can do it out there and it's more of it than there is in town.

[00:31:05] Yeah. Actually, one of our commentators here, Johnathan Weber, notes that the

[00:31:13] Growing, concentrating development in the towns makes more higher tax burden for those towns. But that's really what people want.

[00:31:21] They want to come to those places. And I always am struck by how much we spend on six or $700 million in the state really supporting our road infrastructure. When sidewalks and little simple things painting a line on the side of the road, which is pretty cheap, can actually facilitate more cycling. And we know from our research that almost a third, a third of the trips taken every day in Vermont are less than a mile. So there's some way that those can certainly be captured, as you said, by other means of getting around. One other question. Quick question, do you on this fare free transit, which sounds like a really, really interesting idea, do you know anyone else doing that or are there any other states who might use this money in that way?

[00:32:12] Oh, I don't know. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were as you as you know, Richard, better thanI is there are other places that are going fare free before covid. Kansas City comes to mind.

[00:32:26] I believe there's more and more places in Europe than there are usually cities doing it like like the state of Missouri has not done. The city of Kansas City, Missouri has. And we have a mixture here in Vermont. We actually don't have much of it here. And Chittenden County I can only think of one bus that is fare free. College St bus. But. Advance transit in the White River Junction region, which includes both sides of the river. They're totally fare free. Their whole system. And they found that once they went fare free ridership doubled almost. So a lot of it's in your head. You know, I mean, you might think, why shouldn't you pay a little bit money to get on the bus? And that makes sense. Help, help pay for it. But psychologically, you know, you got a reception and it's a cash bar or it's not a cash bar. I don't know about you, but I usually don't enjoy a glass of wine if it is a cash bar.

[00:33:40] Yes. Agreed. All right. Mr. McCormack, Mr. Chairman, we're going to slowly wrap this up. But I do want to take one last just, you know, from us here at Sustainable Transportation Vermont, to thank you for your leadership in this. A is there anything, I know you're kind of in the throes of this last part of the session. Anything happening right now? We can support you in any way or what is what is happening in the legislature right now. Where are you? Where is it all at?

[00:34:10] We have to rewrite the T Bill, the transportation bill, which is one of two bills that my committee passes. So we have a lot of amendments in it and it authorizes the entire transportation construction for the next fiscal year, which is. About six hundred forty million dollars a year. And where we are simple. When I say we, I mean those of us advocating for a transit program that that includes things beyond highways and includes them in a big, big way, not just in a token. Which is what I would argue it is now. We really need your help.

[00:34:59] We need your help. So badly to advocate to the other members of my committee, people of all parties, that this is important and that the legislature needs to get beyond its inferiority complex and stop rubber stamping what the administration, regardless of who the administration is because of the governance, a Republican or a Democrat, that doesn't matter. Our tendency is to act like a typical board of directors and rubber stamp. In other words, agree with what we scrutinize what they tell us. Take the answers and don't change what they want to do. And that that's what moves the change. So please advocate that we should be writing that budget.

[00:35:57] All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let's bring back Brianna is going to join us again and talk about our next speaker. But really from all of us, at Sustainable Transportation Vermont. Thank you for your work.

[00:36:08] And, you know, in the end, we will hopefully be able to keep supporting what you're doing. All right. Thank you very much. Brianna come back and tell us what's next.

[00:36:21] So next week, I'm going to hide you guys so I can just show who is speaking next week, next week with us City Councilman Jack Hanson talking about climate change and covid-19. So tune in next Friday, May 15th at 12:00 PM. And thank you all for being here. And I'm so sorry if we didn't get all of your questions, but I really appreciate all the engagement and for it to continue next week. So thank you.